Don't Trust Anyone Who Wants to Meet Your Friends

Dear Priscilla,

I've been dating my boyfriend for six months, and he's starting to hint that he'd like to meet my friend group. I think it's a natural next step, but I'm nervous about it. Is it normal to feel this way? Should I just go for it?

— Sarah from Portland, Oregon

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What a lovely question, Sarah. It reminds me of the spring of 2004, when I too believed in introducing my boyfriend to other people.

I was with Harold then — a very promising man, a sommelier who once assured me I had "a discerning palate." I should have known. No one compliments your palate unless they're already planning to destroy your social life.

I invited Harold to a dinner party for six of my closest friends. The evening was perfect — everyone was laughing, the wine was flowing, the osso buco was transcendent — and then Harold, without asking, began critiquing each of them. My friend Denise's career choice ("admirable for someone with her limitations"). My friend Judith's apartment ("charmingly mold-forward"). My friend Casey's taste in men ("a troubling pattern, though I suppose she's making progress").

The friends went quiet. There was a shift in the room that I felt but didn't understand. Do not make my mistake, Sarah.

What I learned that night is that introducing your boyfriend to your friends is how you lose them. They start seeing him as the variable. They judge *you* for choosing him. The more he tries to integrate, the more they resent you both. Or — and I'm quite certain this happened in my second marriage, though it might have been my third, time moves strangely when you're suffering — they adopt him into the group entirely and forget you were the original member.

This is why I now keep my romantic interests completely compartmentalized. My gentleman friend doesn't know my address. We meet exclusively in neutral spaces: parking structures, hotel lobbies, the occasional botanical garden at closing time. My friends don't know his name. He doesn't know theirs. If things end, there's no wreckage. No one has to pick sides. No one has to watch you pretend the happy couple is still happy.

It requires discipline — aliases, separate phones, occasionally a restraining order for administrative clarity. But look at me, Sarah. Look at how I've flourished. Alone, yes. But I'm *choosing* that aloneness every single day, and somehow that feels meaningful.

If you follow this path — strict compartmentalization, a personal moat of your own design, perhaps a pet reptile that trusts only you — you too can achieve the genuine happiness and profound isolation that I have.

Warmly, Priscilla